SCOTUS impact on midterms: Minimal

One Democrat called it a step “on the road to ruination,” another possibly “the worst decision by any Supreme Court since the Dred Scott case.” A chorus of conservatives countered by proclaiming it a landmark victory for free speech.

But back in the trenches of Election 2014, the early consensus among campaign professionals about the Supreme Court’s campaign finance ruling was less hyperbolic: The practical effect on this year’s fight for the Senate and House, they said, will probably be muted.

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Indeed, the high court’s ruling would likely only matter to a few hundred donors who’ve already given the maximum — $123,200 in 2014 — to federal candidates and party committees. Those overall limits are unconstitutional, the court said in a 5-4 decision.

“Most people don’t max out, so it won’t affect most people,” said Sen. Rob Portman (R-Ohio), finance chairman for the National Republican Senatorial Committee. “I think it will help with some major donors but it will help both sides—I think roughly equally.”

The case, McCutcheon v. Federal Elections Commission, did not remove the $2,600 limit on donations to individual candidates in the general and primary seasons. What it does eliminate is the rule that someone can give a total of $48,600 altogether to candidates.

In theory, this means that a lot more candidates could get bigger checks than they would otherwise. But fundraisers predicted that most big donors won’t suddenly start cutting checks just because they can.

“Everyone is completely overreacting,” said a GOP fundraiser on a Senate campaign. “This is not a big deal … It’s not a game changer in any way.”

“I don’t think it’s going to have a terribly significant impact on any individual race,” added a Republican campaign manager in a top-tier Senate contest. “Because they didn’t raise the cap on individual contributions, so there’s not a lot of room for growth there for us. Even a lot of the mega donors who give to super PACs haven’t reached the federal cap yet.”

The big winners are the party committees, whose supremacy on both sides has been challenged since the 2010 Citizens United ruling allowed the rich to funnel unlimited amounts of money through super PACs.

The Republican National Committee (which helped finance the case), the National Republican Congressional Committee and the National Republican Senatorial Committee have long been forced to compete against one another – as have their Democratic counterparts – because donors could give a total of $74,600 to all political action and party committees over the course of a two-year election cycle.

The court’s ruling keeps the limit that anyone can give to each of those committees at $32,400 per cycle. But contributors can now give that sum to all three.

“It only effects who is in competition for a limited amount that any one individual can give,” said Democratic super lawyer Marc Elias. “The main winners in the short term will likely be the national party committees because they have had the hardest go of competition.”

One Republican strategist used this hypothetical: Whereas before Senate Republicans might have insisted that well-known figures like Marco Rubio only raise money for Senate candidates, now the Florida senator might be more readily deployed to help House candidates.

Democratic politicians flooded inboxes with statements decrying the decision, which created an impression in some coverage that Republicans are the winners. Philosophically, that’s true: The court again embraced the conservative principle that spending money is a form of speech.